Karen Buchmueller is a good friend and colleague of Laura’s, and she’s also an avid photographer. Both of our spouses were tied up for the afternoon, so we decided to head out with our cameras and shoot some photos. Our targets for the afternoon were the old ruins of Pelham Mills, and Ebenezer Methodist Church.
I had visited Pelham Mills several times with my camera, but it was Karen’s first visit. I always enjoy visiting places with other photographers, even if it’s somewhere that I’ve already taken lots of photos. They often spot things I’ve overlooked, or see an angle or composition that hadn’t occurred to me. This was definitely the case at the old dilapidated mill office.
In addition to interesting light patterns, there were lots of overlapping textures…
…and smaller details that deserved a closer look…
From the old mill office we walked to the top of the dam and took a few shots. I did one 180 degree panorama that was stitched together in Photoshop.
Karen had a neutral density filter that fit my lens, so I used it to slow down the shots and get some water blur, despite the fact that it was a bright, sunny day.
Here are a couple more shots from the top of the dam.
On the other side of the dam we wandered among the ruins of the old power house and dye room, as well as taking shots of the dam from below.
When we had started out Karen had expressed interest in finding an old cemetery. The solution was fairly easy, as Ebenezer Methodist is right around the corner from the old Pelham Mills.
The history of the church is tied closely with that of the old mill. Informal services were held at “Moon’s Meeting Place”, on land owned by one William Moon, until a formal congregation was established in 1819. The current sanctuary was built in 1848, with later additions.
The church sits at the corner of Batesville and Ebenezer Roads. Batesville Road is only two lanes, and carries far too much traffic for its capacity. Unfortunately, the church’s cemetery is on either side of the road. Any attempt to widen the road would mean moving graves, and would encroach on the historic church.
The graves closest to the church are the oldes ones. These date back to the early 1800’s, and have some of the interesting symbollism from that period.
Some of the prominent names of the area can be found in the churche’s cemetery, including Bates, Pelham, and Greer.
With traffic whizzing close by, we spent about an hour taking photos of the various headstones. Some were faded beyond legibility.
It was an enjoyable afternoon spent photographing history. As much as I like taking photos, I like it even more when someone else is also taking pictures. We learn from each other, and inspire and challenge each other to do new things. I need to do more of these photowalks, and revive our old Flickr gang that used to go on regular outings like this.
View Ebenezer and Pelham in a larger map
Do you sell your work? I will miss Greenville very much and would like to hang some pictures of local restaurants in my kitchen in Florida. You wrote about Le Boheme…one of my favorites, as was Sophisticated Palate. I am from Maine, so you must know that these are “big city” restaurants to me and we have had some great times here. You must be sick of hearing from me, now that I have discovered your site, so I will leave you alone after finding out if your work is for sale.